


Trajectories

by KateAtTheClose



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Canon Convergent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateAtTheClose/pseuds/KateAtTheClose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve runs a Governor-mandated elite vice task force to take down the big dogs in Hawaii's thriving underworld, and when he stumbles over the key to putting the major players away once and for all he ends up getting more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trajectories

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this prompt: http://pineapple-infested.dreamwidth.org/292.html?thread=228644.
> 
> Written mid-first season with no spoilers for the season one finale.

“You all set, Kono?” Steve turned his head away from the monitors to speak into his mic, as if that would offer some modicum of privacy in a conversation that could clearly be heard through the speakers by all occupants of the van. 

   
“I’m good to go, boss.” She pushed a hand through her hair, obscuring her murmured reply through the microphone as the puffed-up layers resettled around her face. Steve didn’t know what the hell she’d done to her hair to get it to go like that, all haphazardly wild and messy. He did know, however, that between the barely-there top, the skin-tight hot pants, and the dangerous-looking heels, she looked the part. 

 

“Alright. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He tossed off, and gave a slightly tense smile at the answering smirk that appeared on the monitor. 

 

“One day we’re going to have a long conversation about encouraging rookies to engage in questionable behaviour this early in their careers.” Chin said dryly from Steve’s side, eyes on Kono’s progress onto the street. 

 

“We’re in vice, questionable behaviour is the whole reason we’re here.” Steve said, holding the microphone away from his mouth so Kono wouldn’t be forced to hear her boss and her cousin’s repartee. “Besides, she volunteered.”

 

Chin rolled his eyes. “As if she wouldn’t use every card in her deck to get onto such a high-profile task force.”

 

Steve spread his hands, tiny microphone dangling on its string between his fingers as he shrugged. “Hey, the governor’s the one with the proactive clean-street agenda.”

 

Chin’s gaze flicked once up to Steve before going back at the screen, shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, but her immunity clause has nothing on your interpretation of ‘by any means necessary’.”

 

“Hey, guys,” Jenna called from her own position in front of the monitor, “she’s in position.” 

 

“And she thinks you two should stop bickering. I can make my own life decisions, cuz.” Kono’s hushed voice came over the microphone, and onscreen she clicked shut her compact and popped the lid back on her lipstick, leaning provocatively against the dingy wall behind her, hips jutted out, a heeled boot cinched between bricks. 

 

Steve looked almost sheepishly at the microphone in his fingers, and made a mental note that Jenna had clearly upgraded their amplification strength. He knew Chin was likely equally cowed even if he showed no sides of it, the poker-faced bastard. Besides, Steve knew that Chin didn’t so much object to Kono’s decision to become a cop, especially one willing to go undercover, so much as he hated to see his cousin dressed like a prostitute. Kono was nothing if not thorough – and between the eye drops to make her eyes look a little glassy, and the cheap alcohol she dabbed on like perfume, she did make a depressingly convincing street-walker. 

 

“Hey,  _kaikaina_ ,” and apparently the other women of the street thought so as well. Two materialized at Kono’s side, giving her the once-over, “you’re lost. This is our street.” It sounded almost friendly, but there was no mistaking the dangerous undertone.

 

“Yeah?” She was a cool operator, alright, and that was one of the main reasons that Steve had chosen her from the pile of better qualified Hawaiian police officers. “Just looking to make some cash.”

 

“Who are you workin’ for?” The shorter one tossed out, decidedly less friendly but sounding more interested than overtly hostile. 

 

“No one big-time. My boyfriend’ll get a cut, but he’s the one who gets me what I need, you know?” Kono smiled, movements just that little bit unsteady, a little bit shaky. 

 

“Sure, honey.” The taller one said, absently scratching tellingly at her own arm. 

 

“Stay on it, Kono.” Steve spoke steadily into the microphone, Kono giving no indication of having heard him, but obediently following up. 

 

“You know who I could talk to,  _kua’ana_?” She tilted her head, eyes moving pointedly down to the taller one’s arm. “Cut out the middle man, ya know?”

 

She got a more intensive once-over for her efforts, but after a moment the shorter one relented. “Name’s Victor. He’s round the corner, across Hotel Street. Go in the alley across from the bar and he’ll come find you.”

 

Chin sighed inside the van. “Meeting a dealer in an alleyway – we are not bringing this up at thanksgiving.” Steve cracked a smile, but his eyes were all on the monitor, straining to catch every word of the exchange. He needn’t have paid such close attention, as just then a car rolled up and the girls’ attention was all on the john. 

 

Then Steve was sliding into the driver’s seat, glancing over his shoulder to the monitor where it showed that the man had singled out Kono to the disgust of the other two ladies, and she was leaning in the window like a pro, cutting a deal.

 

Twelve minutes later, Steve had the john facedown on the hood of his car four blocks away, Kono had dashed down an alleyway as if she were making a frightened escape so as to not blow her cover if any prying eyes were watching, and Chin was smiling with satisfaction at the broken nose she had given the john just before doing so. “Get ‘em booked,” Steve said, handing him over to a smug Chin.

 

“We good, boss?” Kono’s voice over the mic. 

 

“Golden. Wait forty for Chin to take Romeo in, then go ahead with the meet. We won’t have eyes in the sky on this one, but your buttoncam will do the trick.” Steve climbed back into the van, sliding the door shut behind him.  

 

~*~

 

Kono nodded, and pressed on down the alleyway she was currently in, figuring in her head how long it would have taken her to have given head, collect a twenty, and be back to loiter on the street until it was time to circle around to the bar off Hotel Street without attracting suspicion from her two friends on the corner. It wasn’t exactly the kind of calculation they’d trained her for the academy, but she loved the rush of working undercover. She suspected some of the thrill had something to do with the dreams she’d had as a little girl of being an actress, and playing dress up hooker was about as close to Julia Roberts as she was liable to get, courtesy of  _Pretty Women_. She’d forgotten that fantasy a long time ago, in place of being a cop like Chin, keeping Hawaii safe and putting the bad guys behind bars, and she had yet to regret her career choice. 

 

Besides, this side of the vice division, McGarrett’s task force, targeted the big wigs – the men and women behind the rings of prostitution, trafficking, illegal gambling and drugs. The ones who made the money that drove Hawaii’s underworld, rather than just your run-of-the-mill pimps and dealers. It was the big leagues. And if it meant she had to walk around town half the night once in a while in really fucking painful stilettos and a padded push-up bra, she was more than willing. Giving slimy guys who solicited her for sex broken bones and black eyes, coincidently, was also very cathartic. A girl needed an outlet now and then.

 

She put the ‘just coming down off the good stuff’ guise back on as she went back to her street, but when she leaned against a wall a ways down from the pros they left her alone. When she finally judged it a reasonable amount of time, she slinked down a deserted alleyway and made her way to Hotel Street, heading towards the bar. Along with the area around the airport, this was the seediest part of downtown Honolulu, but with McGarrett and her cousin in her ear and her own confidence when it came to self-defence, she didn’t feel in an unreasonable amount of danger, just enough to get her blood flowing nice and quick.

 

When suddenly there were hands forcing her arms down to her sides, hot breath on her neck, and a voice whispering “I’ll give you a good time, w _ahine hookamakama_ ”in her ear, she thought that perhaps she had miscalculated, but was still confident she could take the guy on. She could hear McGarrett and Chin in her ear, telling her to hold on, they were on their way, but she was still swinging her heel forward to get momentum to rear back for a kick when she felt one of the hands press a knife edge against her neck and froze. “Feisty, huh?” He chuckled, and Kono swallowed unconsciously, the knife tip cutting in slightly, and re-evaluated just how in trouble she was. 

 

“Hey, fucker,” came a voice from the side, and Kono felt a jolt when she realized it wasn’t Chin or McGarrett. “Your mother never taught you how to treat a lady, did she?” 

 

The guy whirled around, dragging Kono with her and she bit her lip as she felt blood trail down her neck. There was a man with blond hair slicked back standing a few feet away, jeans slung low on his hips, a white t-shirt plastered to his chest and the sleeves rolled up, and he was glaring something fierce at the man over Kono’s shoulder.

 

“I only ask, because this is a really poor showing.” He continued, one thumb hanging out of his jeans, entirely casual except for the how the way he was standing emphasized his muscles. “I’d say go home, practice in the mirror, learn how to address women respectfully, maybe take a course or something – you know, How to Pick Up Women 101 – and work from there. You might want to lose the knife, too, but, hey, that’s just my opinion, one guy to another.”

 

The man holding Kono was speechless for a moment, but then right before he could find his voice McGarrett and Chin shot out of the alley, guns raised and approaching steadily.

 

~*~

 

“Did you know she was a cop?” Steve asks in the dingy light of a corner store they find nearby, when Kono is safe in the van with Chin and pressing a bandage to her neck, and Sang Min was carted off in a black and white. He presses a cup of what he suspects to be truly awful coffee into the blond guy’s hand, his own cup almost immediately forgotten when he sits across from the man on rickety red plastic chairs. When he’d asked the blond his name outside, all he’d gotten was a tight smile and the name Dean.

 

“Nah. Knew something was up, though. She looked convincing, alright, but soon as the guy with the hair got his hands on her, she cleaned right up. Alert as anything – could have given him a run for his money, I’m sure, if he hadn’t pulled a knife on her, even if backup was around the corner.”

           

Steve nodded, figuring that was fair, and relieved that Kono’s cover wasn’t blown and they hadn’t been walking into a trap. “What were you doing there?”

 

“Making a living.”  Dean said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his broad chest, raising his eyebrows and the hint of a teasing smile coming over his mouth. 

 

“You’re a . . .” Steve made a vague gesture, and the guy just looked at him incredulously.

 

“Really?” 

 

Steve shrugged and went to take a sip of his coffee, and then manfully resisted spitting it out again. Deadly SEAL he may be, but even he didn’t have taste buds impervious to burnt, stale coffee.

 

“No, honest to god, was that hand gesture supposed to mean ‘guy who has sex with people for money’?” 

 

“Would you prefer something a little more graphic?” Steve asked, because he had no idea what the hell this conversation was. 

 

“No, I would have liked you to  _use your words_ , like a big girl.” 

 

Steve smiled, because it had been a really goddamn long time since anyone in his life called him a girl. Perhaps since he’d last seen Mary. 

 

“So you’re a cop, right?” Oddly enough, Dean asked the question as calm as anything, despite having just told the head of Hawaii’s specialized vice task force that he was a prostitute, meaning Steve could arrest him for prostitution just as he had the john for soliciting.

 

“More or less.” Steve answered, because his task force wasn’t exactly the normal way things got done.

 

“What the hell does that mean, Mr. Enigmatic?”

 

“Mr. Enigmatic? Really?” 

 

The guy just grinned, and then his expression turned a bit more serious. “So what was the lady-cop doing undercover around here in the first place? Another one of those entrapment schemes?”

 

“It’s not entrapment if they were going to do it anyway.” Steve didn’t exactly have all the regulations memorized, but he knew the rules for vice law enforcement. Mostly. Jenna had the whole goddamn book memorized, and Chin and Kono could usually be relied upon to let him know if he was going too overboard – if they caught him in time, anyway. If not, the governor’s promise of immunity had saved him so far. “And no, we’re after the kingpins, not just the johns. But we’ll take away those we get in the mean time.”

 

“Least you could do, right?” There’s humour there, but a sharp edge to it. This was the guy’s profession, after all. “How’s that going?”

 

Steve took another sip of coffee, and thought he kept from wincing, but the other guy’s grin said he wasn’t quite successful. 

 

“Well, it’s a bust now that Kono’s been made. What’re the chances that Victor Hesse isn’t going to hear about today?”

 

“Pretty slim. But if it’s Hesse you’re after, you might not be entirely shit outta luck.”

 

“That so?” Steve said, hoping for a lead. They’d already bled Kamekona dry on this one. 

 

“Yeah. You got me.” He grinned, leaning back even further in his chair, and for once Steve McGarrett wondered what the fuck he was getting himself in to. 

 

~*~

 

Dean, it turned out, had been in the business long enough to know all its major players. As he told them when they brought him down to HQ and stood across the table from him, he was a man with his fingers in a damn lot of pies. “ _And no, Team Judgement-Eyes, that is not a euphemism.”_ They wouldn’t have found Victor in the alleyway off Hotel Street near the bar, but only one of his right hands who spread the goods under the figurehead’s name. 

 

“Like in the  _Princess Bride_ , where all the various pirate captains have the name the Dread Pirate Roberts.” He said, spreading his hands like this analogy would explain everything. Jenna looked at him adoringly, Kono gave something suspiciously close to a giggle, and Chin smiled. Steve just frowned, because he, first of all, had never seen that movie, and second of all, had no idea what Dean  _had_ , especially when it sounded absurdly feminine. 

 

“Look at that face.” Dean commented, causing all the heads of his team to swing towards him. 

 

“What?”

 

“Someone needs to introduce this man to pop culture. He has clearly been living under a rock, which is fair to neither him nor the rock.”  Dean looked positively gleeful.

 

“My rock and I do just fine, thanks, now get to the point.” Steve wondered why he sounded defensive. While Jenna was still in Elvis-fan mode, Kono and Chin were looking at each other pointedly, which, if he wasn’t an extensively trained naval intelligence officer who did not concern himself with sophomoric behaviour, would have been worrisome.

 

Moreover, it turned out that Hesse wasn’t even at the top of the food chain, just making himself comfortable in the equivalent of middle management, while some big dog named Wo Fat was calling all the shots. 

 

“Get him and his empire crumbles.” Dean said, leaning on the table nonchalantly, the monitors around them plastered with names, pictures, mug shots, active warrants and laundry lists of offences. “Wo Fat’s the only one keeping it all intact.”

 

Jenna looked up from where she was bent over one of the touch screens, glasses pushed high on her nose, and with a flick of her finger threw up a schematic of the hierarchy. Chin whistled.   Steve turned to look at it, his arms crossing. 

 

“It’s a thing of beauty.” Kono said with satisfaction. It  _was_ pretty damn impressive. 

           

“What aren’t you telling us?” Steve asked, turning his head to look at Dean.

 

“I was wondering the same thing.” Chin said supportively. 

 

“Really, guys?” Dean said, incredulous. He spread his arm, gesturing at the screens filled with information he’d given them. “I’m sorry I didn’t get their ice cream preferences, I just happen to have  _actually relevant shit_  memorized instead.”

 

Steve turned to him. “Why  _do_  you know this much?” How could a male prostitute they found on the streets of Honolulu know everything they needed to put away the major players of the city’s thriving underworld?

 

“McGarrett.” It was Jenna, working on a tablet. She looked up to meet his eyes, nervous. “You need to see this.” She didn’t say sir, at least, progress from when she’d first come to the task force from wherever they kept freshly hatched FBI analysts. Whatever it was, she wasn’t putting it on screen.

 

He walked over to her, the rest of the team silent, but a quick glance told him Dean’s face was devoid of any expression. He looked down at the screen, and it was a picture of Wo Fat, surrounded by three men that Dean had just identified as his lieutenants. There was Dean himself, sitting right beside Wo Fat, the older man leaning in to whisper something in the blond’s ear, his hand on Dean’s back. She pressed and flicked, and two more photos showed up, each with Dean smiling and in close. Steve wondered why that knowledge settled so much like lead in his gut.

 

“Look at that face.”  Dean’s voice sounded a little bit strained, all things considered, and it was loud in the quiet of HQ. “Looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.”

 

Steve looked at him, quietly tense. “Were you planning on telling us that you were in their inner circle?”

 

“Did I lie to you?  No. I told you I had sex for money.  Did I tell you in the  _reams_  of details I gave on their criminal history and whereabouts that Wo Fat and some of his guys prefer taquito to taco? No I did not.” Dean was emphatic, gesturing along with his words. He crossed his arms, and suddenly Steve only wanted to look at where Dean’s biceps emerged from his tight white sleeves, and the weight in his gut twisted. 

 

“Look,” Dean said, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “The money was good, alright? And being a fucking kept boy was easier and safer than going with whoever picked me up of the street.”

 

Steve thought that was somewhat questionable when the men you were being kept by were the leaders of Hawaii’s mafia, but then he thought of the piles of cases and leads on his desk and just how much violence, disease and death haunted the pages. Even with all he knew, he had to allow for the fact that maybe Dean did have an argument for it being the safer choice in his eyes.

 

“Why did you memorize all this? It’s too detailed to have been gotten all by accident.” Chin’s voice managed to keep from being accusing, but remained solemn. 

 

Dean sighed. “Because I used to be a cop.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He was their prime witness, and with all that he told them it would have been idiotic not to put him in witness protection.  But, as Steve pointed out, his own house was safer than any governmental protection, and Dean’s status as an informant was less likely to leak back to Wo Fat. Dean’s information had revealed that there was a snitch in both the Hawaii Police Department and the Governor’s office, so Steve preferred for them to play their cards close to their chest until the case was airtight and everyone involved was behind bars.

 

It was the rational choice. But Steve remembered the long look that Kono had given him when he suggested it, and Chin looked suspiciously amused. Jenna, on the other hand, couldn’t stop staring at Dean, which Dean clearly was accustomed to – and apparently thrived on, which Steve took to indicate that he needed to get him out of the office as soon as possible. For professionalism, or some other viable and reasonable reason.

 

Steve popped the tops off two Longboards, handing one over to Dean where he was reclining on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. 

 

“You know, Jenna’s going to use the facial recognition software to run you through the national databases. And if you think a fake name is going to stop her, you’re sorely mistaken.” 

 

“Yeah, I was getting that vibe from her too.” Dean shook his head. “It wasn’t exactly my plan to end up there. But there was no way out – first I needed the money, then I was in too deep and knew too much. I couldn’t leave unless it was to the authorities and begged for fucking sanctuary.”

 

“So it was a self preservation thing.” Steve said, as if this were a goddamn therapy session. 

 

“Partly. Also that my father was a firefighter, and I always wanted to be a cop since I was a little kid. I had a real squeaky clean life in New Jersey for awhile as a detective – wife, kid, house, the whole nine.”  His voice caught on the mention of his child, but he barrelled through. 

 

“Then my wife left me, took my daughter, got the better part of our savings and assets in the divorce, so all I had left was my job. Then she remarries some state senator, then my brother is indicted by the SEC. I stuck my neck out for him, took his word, he turned out to be guilty, I lost by badge, and then new hubby Senator-Step-Stan needs to distance his new wife from her evil ex-husband, so I lose all custody and everything else I had in my life.” 

 

Dean laughed, and it was as dry and humourless as could be. “But they sprang for a plane ticket anywhere in the country. So I went as far as I could that wasn’t fucking Alaska with nothing but the clothes on my back. Didn’t even have a gun – and weren’t marooned pirates on god-forsaken islands always supposed to have a gun?   Anyway, I was too depressed to do anything but use my last handful of cash on booze, and that’s where I got picked up the first time. I didn’t fucking care, I was dead to the world and got more cash for more booze.” He shrugged, and tipped the Longboard up to take a long drink. “So that’s the sob story. One day I’ll sell it to Lifetime and make a fortune. Couldn’t quite stand being this caught up in a criminal circle without some grand plan to take it down – wishful thinking that I was really just undercover, mostly. I used to see things in black and white, but now everything’s a fuckload more grey.”

 

Steve really had no idea what to fucking say. Jenna would have the records compiled and summarized at HQ tomorrow, ready to blow up on the big screen if needed. Dean would know it, just as Steve did. Dean had no reason to lie, and Steve appreciated the insight into just who he was opening his house to. 

 

“So what’s your real name, James Dean?” Steve asked, leaning forward in the armchair so his elbows rested on his knees, his beer held loosely in his left hand. 

 

The guy snorted. “Caught that, did you?”

 

“Between the hair, the shirt and the jeans, I sensed the theme.” Steve smiled. “Just need a couple cigarettes and a car named  _Little Bastard_  and you’d be set.” 

 

The guy shook his head, handed his beer over to his left hand, and leaned forward to offer his hand out to Steve. “Former Detective Danny Williams.”

 

Steve leaned forward and grasped the offered hand for a shake, noting absently that Danny’s hand was strong, calloused, and cool from the Longboard’s condensation. “Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett.” As long as they were sharing, and all that.

 

“Pleasure to meet you, Steven.” Danny said, eyes bright. Steve was distracted by the fact that he hadn’t quite let go of his hand quite yet. “And that explains the ‘more or less’ about being a cop, army boy.”

 

Steve had just enough time to quirk a smile and say “Navy,” for clarification, but then Danny was kissing him, hot and firm, pushing him back into the armchair and straddling his knees, and Steve’s hands were suddenly digging in to jeans-covered thighs, and he was pushing back, mind entirely focused on tongue and the warm, muscular body all but attacking him. 

           

But his mind didn’t entirely blank away, because despite his focus, he’d always been a multitasker. “Danny,” he said, as his hands fought with Danny’s at the hem of the skin-tight white shirt to pull it up and off faster, his eyes raking the revealed torso before forcing the guy to meet his eyes. “You don’t owe me anything – you know that, right?”

 

Danny laughed, rolling his hips against Steve’s. “Are you serious? I would’ve discussed the fucking terms up front if this one weren’t on the house, babe.” And Steve didn’t quite know what to say to that which couldn’t be inadvertently taken as an insult, because perhaps he wasn’t as smooth or as capable of multitasking as he thought. 

 

“And, G.I. Joe, whores don’t kiss on the mouth when they’re on the clock,” he shoved a hand up Steve’s shirt, doing something to his nipple that made Steve make some sort of breathy groan sound and Danny grin wickedly, “even the really good ones.”

 

With that assured, Steve had no problem putting his own muscles to use in pushing Danny off him enough to flip him under him on the couch, kissing him thoroughly while Danny got the angle of their hips and cocks just right. When he leaned back to tug his own shirt off, Danny just looked up at him, slicked back hair finally mussed, lips red, cheeks flushed. His fingers brushed, with a startling almost-reverence, over Steve’s tattoos. “You’re fucking  _gorgeous_.” Steve smiled, as it was a long time since he’d felt self-conscious about being shirtless – living in Hawaii, and all – but he could still feel a flush creeping up his neck at that kind of compliment. 

           

Then hands were slipping under waistbands, and buttons unbuttoned and zippers unzipped, and the rest passed in a hot flurry, only interrupted when Danny’s breath was ghosting over Steve’s hipbone, mouthing his way down, flashing a string of condoms he’d produced from his back pocket between his fingers, and telling Steve very succinctly between kisses how he was a man who took liked to take precautions, because he was a  _professional_. 

 

 

~*~

 

           

Steve made coffee, eggs and toast the next morning, firstly, because that was about the extent of his culinary prowess, and, secondly, because he felt oddly in limbo between cooking breakfast for a witness under his protection, and a one night stand. Thing was, Danny was a natural. He sat at the table, drinking his orange juice and reading the newspaper as casual as anything. It was still a mystery to Steve what he’d found in the bathroom cabinet to slick his hair back again, but he managed to look as presentable as one could in tight, faded jeans and a t-shirt with wrinkled sleeves. 

 

“If I knew witness protection was this much fun, I would’ve turned myself in ages ago.” Danny leant back with his hands behind his head and a teasing smile on his face as Steve did the dishes. 

 

Steve laughed. “I wouldn’t call last night standard operating procedure, Danno.” He tossed over his shoulder, but when he turned to lean on the counter Danny was frozen, staring at him. 

 

“What did you call me?”

 

For a moment, Steve honestly couldn’t remember. “Danno? Do I need to apologise?”

 

In a flash, the smile was back on, and Steve may not be an actual detective, but he  _knew_  it wasn’t genuine. “If you gotta ask to apologise, babe, I have serious concerns about your social skills.”

 

“Danny.” Steve crossed his arms, and somewhere in his head alarm bells were ringing, because immunity and special task force or not, he should not have fucked the prime witness of an active investigation into his living room couch. He was far too emotionally involved already, and it had only been one day. 

 

Danny looked down at the folded newspaper in front of him, then back up at Steve, squinting a little. “My daughter Grace used to call me that, when she was really young, and couldn’t say my real name just right.”

 

Steve’s face softened. “I won’t use it again.”

 

“Nah,” and Danny looked at him straight, smiling a little. “I don’t think I mind so much.”

 

~*~

 

“Woah, woah, woah, you fucking crazyhead!” Danny yelped, clinging to the handle above his door in the truck when they reached the third stoplight. He flung himself to the back of his seat, dragging his seatbelt over him and clicking it into place. He held his hands out in front of him. “Okay. I passed my driving course in the academy with flying colours in Jersey, but I’ve been on police chases smoother than this. What the  _hell_ is wrong with you?”

 

“Did you just call me a crazyhead?” Steve asked, the hint of a smirk on his lips. “Really?”

 

“Yes, yes I did. But we are going back to your office, not trying to out-race Vin Diesel and Paul Walker.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nevermind.” Danny said, long suffering. “Carry on.”

 

“I’m Vin Diesel in this scenario, whatever it is.” Steve said decisively.

 

Danny laughed. “You know what? That’s probably true, even if it does make me Paul Walker, which you fucking  _owe_ me for.”

 

“I was driving the speed limit, you know. More or less.” Steve assured him, confident, refraining from mentioning that Danny was the one who chose the reference in the first place, because he was an adult.

 

“Oh,  _more or less_. Very comforting.” Danny sighed.   To humour him, Steve made sure to follow every speed limit and traffic law to a tee, amused at how it irritated Danny. “Now you’re patronizing me. Very mature, babe.”

 

Steve never got a chance to respond, but very clearly thought that maybe he wasn’t quite so much an adult after all, because as they passed through a clearly green intersection at an appropriately legal speed, a car slammed into the hood on the driver’s side. As his head snapped forward, Steve thought, very succinctly, that he probably should have put on a seatbelt like Danny had, but then his forehead collided with the steering wheel, and Steve wasn’t very clear about anything for awhile.

 

He was fairly certain that someone was calling him name, concerned and frantic. Then there was more shouting, a door being slammed, and maybe his name again. His heart was beating, oddly frenzied considering how blurry and hazy his mind was. It was too easy to drift away, even if something wet was on his face, and his own name was ringing in his ears. 

 

~*~

 

Kono looked from the files on Daniel Williams that Jenna had put up on the big screen to her cousin. “How come you turned out okay, cuz?”

 

“Because you and John McGarrett still believed me, and instead of sending me out of the state, they just transferred me to security patrol.” Chin moved one of the pictures to the front and a beautiful woman smiled at the camera, a small girl grinning in her arms, then replaced it with another, of man standing between them in the picture that definitely wasn’t Williams. “Even the best people can find themselves on the street without a legitimate means to make ends meet, thanks to the right sequence of unfortunate circumstances.” 

 

Kono certainly had seen enough of that in her time in vice; addicts, dealers and prostitutes all had stories. It was why she appreciated the task force so much – they went after the kingpins, not the minor players caught up in it with no means of escape.  

 

“I had alternatives and a support system. Those go a long way.” Chin’s phone rang, and he slipped his phone out of his pocket, glancing at the call display. “Hey, bossman. Think he’s doing a coffee run?”

 

Jenna snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

 

Chin chuckled, and answered the call. “Hey - ” All of a sudden the smile dropped off his face, and his expression turned stony. 

 

“What’s going on?” Kono said, drawing closer, her own forehead creased with concern. Chin slid his cell to speakerphone, and held it out.

 

“ _-will you stop that, I’m fine!_ ” Steve, agitated. Another voice, female. “ _Sir, you need to go to the hospital!_ ” 

 

Kono met Chin’s eyes, and she saw Jenna cover her mouth with her fingers. 

 

“ _Chin?_ ” Kono thought Steve sounded woozy, and she wondered just how badly he was bleeding. 

 

“We’re all listening.” Chin’s voice was calm and steady, always a wise man in a crisis. She’d admired that about him since she’d been a child. 

 

“ _Danny’s gone – he didn’t run, he was taken._ ” Steve answered their question before either of them could even put it into words. “ _They targeted my car, three blocks from HQ. Should -_ ” He audibly gulped, and panted for breath for a moment. Kono felt a bit ill herself, but she and Chin were already jogging to the car, Jenna having tapped into the call and listening in on a headset. “ _Should be a camera, at the intersection. I didn’t get a plate.”_

 

Kono winced at Steve’s self-recriminating tone. 

 

“ _I’m on it!_ ”  Jenna’s voice. 

 

“Stay there,” Chin said firmly, “we’re on our way.” He clicked his phone shut, pulling open his car door, Kono right behind him entering the passenger side. 

 

“Think he’ll listen?” She asked as Chin revved the engine. 

 

“All we can do is hope.”  He said, wisely.

 

~*~

 

When they got to the scene, Steve was, thankfully, still there, sitting on a curb and holding a gauze pad to his head. He looked up as they approached, dropping his forearm to his knee, and inadvertently giving Kono a full, thorough look at the blood dripping down his forehead. She was certain that not only would the abrasion around the gash in his forehead be bruised and swollen by tomorrow, but that the shadows under his eyes would blossom into at least one full-blown black eye when given a few hours. Not only that, but the way his arm was curled around him, she suspected that he had a few broken or bruised ribs, too.

 

She squatted down next to him, giving him a half-smile as Chin started in on processing the front seat and tire treads for evidence. “Heya, bossman.”

 

“Not as bad as it looks.” Steve assured her, cutting her concern off at the pass, pressing the gauze back against his forehead and pushing himself up to his feet.

 

“Hey, hey, hey!” She reached out to grab him as he swayed, her own lithe form not really capable of holding up someone as dense with muscle mass as he was, despite her best efforts. “Why aren’t the paramedics taking you in,  _brah_?”

 

“Not as bad as it looks,” he said, scowling, and Kono heard Dean’s – Danny’s? - voice in her head saying  _look at that face_ , “scalp wounds bleed like crazy.”

 

“And the ribs?” Kono asked, pushing it, pushing him. When Steve didn’t answer, it started to sink in just how severely he was missing the gene for self-preservation. “You’re going AMA, aren’t you?”

 

“A concussion and a cracked rib.” Steve looked at her, drawing himself up and standing on his own. He seemed steadier, but she didn’t exactly feel a world of relief. “A little dizziness and shortness of breath. All they’d do is send me to a hospital bed to ‘rest’. We need to get a lead on where they’ve taken Danny, and then I can take a load off.”

 

She wasn’t quite sure that she agreed with him, but Williams  _was_  the key to booking all the vice bigwigs in Hawaii’s criminal underworld. So she blinked away her concern, and looked over to where Chin was kneeling down outside the passenger side door, looking off towards the side street. His phone rang, and he stood, answering it, and jogged over to them. “It’s Jenna – she’s got a lead.”

 

Kono squinted at Steve, who had given up on the gauze and wiped irritably with his wrist at the thin line of blood still trickling down his temple. “Well, let’s hear it.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, Steve did have to go to an emergency room for stitches after the cut on his head refused to heal on its own, and his team flat-out mutinied when he suggested stitching it up himself to save time.  He signed himself out AMA as soon as possible, and Chin just drove him back to HQ with a long-suffering sigh that Steve was not entirely sure he deserved.

 

The car that had barrelled into them and taken off with Danny was a rental, secured with credit cards and IDs under one of the aliases that the night before had been revealed to be someone on Wo Fat’s payroll.  It took a call to Catherine to trace the thin trail that had been left behind – he didn’t offer a date in exchange, but she readily gave him a favour, anyway.

 

“You’re not dying, are you?” Was all she asked over the speakerphone, as insightful as ever, as he was giving her a quick thanks after coming through for him yet again, his voice slightly affected by his forcibly shallow breathing.   

 

“Still got a couple of years left,” he assured her, and knew Chin was watching him. 

 

“That true, Detective Kelly?”  Catherine said pointedly, and Steve looked over to where Chin was smiling, staring straight ahead out the windshield as he drove.   

 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

 

“Good.” She said, satisfied, and ended the call, and Steve remembered, fondly and a little bit woozily, why they’d always been such great friends-with-benefits.

 

Between the lead, their recourses, combined brainpower and Danny’s inside information, they surmised much of what had happened.  Two of Wo Fat’s henchmen had gone in search of Dean, and learnt from the man behind the counter of the corner store where Steve and Danny had drank terrible coffee of the former’s description.  Records showed that the mole inside the HPD had accessed Steve’s file, and his workstation had connected to the network printer moments later.  His address had led the henchmen right to his house, but they clearly had enough brains to avoid laying siege to a security alarm-protected house with a gun-toting SEAL inside.  His route from home to HQ was straightforward enough for them to simply be able to lay in wait.

 

Figuring out how they took Danny was one thing, but getting him back was another.  The Governor had been involved, Jenna had surreptitiously broken about three interagency guidelines and use of information rules, and it had taken Chin an hour and a half to drag the location of the dingy backroom of a bar by the port from a very reluctant pimp, who was naively certain that if he held out, his contact, another middle-management criminal equal in standing to Victor Hesse, would promote him up the ring’s ladder.  In the end, though, they finally,  _finally_ had an address.

 

Time was sensitive in this operation – to keep Danny from testifying, all Wo Fat’s minions had to do was kill him, but the task force had pretty good intell that he was being kept alive until they knew just how thoroughly they’d been sold out.  Word was coming in from all over Hawaii of Wo Fat’s men being picked up thanks to Danny’s information, and it was becoming desperate for the bad guys to figure out how to salvage their operation.  The longer Danny talked, or, kept from talking, the longer he’d be kept alive.  As a former cop, Danny would have to have known that.    

 

Steve pointedly ignored the way that Chin, Kono and Jenna seemed to implicitly know that he was too involved on this one, but no one on his team said a word.  Thing was, he knew he was pushing this one hard, even harder than usual.  The Governor had asked him directly, her voice stern and close to desperate, whether or not he was  _sure_ that he knew what he was doing.  Steve knew she had a hell of a lot riding on her ‘tough on crime’ approach, of which he and the vice task force made up an influential portion, and with all the favours and risks piling up around them to get this one witness back Steve knew that if Danny didn’t end up taking the stand, this would turn into a costly high-profile failure.

 

Steve was sure that Danny would stay true to his word, but a creeping and dangerous part of his mind whispered that Danny got paid to make people believe whatever they wanted to, night after night, day after day.  Maybe Steve had been played, maybe this was an elaborate plot engineered by Wo Fat, maybe Danny was just a spy filled with false information to bring down the task force that was tightening the cuffs around their operations . . .  In the end, Steve just had to trust his own gut feeling that Danny was telling the truth, and hope that his usually reliable instincts weren’t swayed by opinions on the guy coming from far further south than his brain. 

           

Luckily, Steve had a finely-tuned ability to focus.  He could force the constant pain from his cracked rib and concussion to the back of his mind, and stubbornly keep his breathing more steady and sure, despite its automatic tendency to become short and ineffective because of his ribs.  He could ignore the way that dizziness tried to creep into his line of vision, and downplay the occasional confusion caused by his concussed brain.  He could follow the case, and focus on the lines that spread from Daniel Williams out to a complicated web of associations rather than the way that Danny had felt stretched out under him, arching under his touch and igniting every single part of Steve he touched.  More or less. 

 

As they checked their guns and tac vests, the SWAT team surrounded the bar – there was no hope, at this point, of them handling this all themselves, or even of this being handled like a normal hostage negotiation.  It was two snipers, not Steve, who scaled the walls and got eyes on Danny through the upper windows.  Cameras fed their viewpoint back to Jenna in the van, while Steve, Chin and Kono waited, guns at the ready, behind the equally tense SWAT team ready to bust the door down. 

 

“We’ve got a positive ID on all visible perps,” Jenna’s voice fed into their earbuds, steady but with an undercurrent of urgency.  “They’re Wo Fat’s – and Williams doesn’t have much longer.”

 

The SWAT team leader gave a terse order over the line, and one of the snipers took aim.  Then – “ _go go go!_ ,” and the shattering of glass was muffled by the pounding of feet and the crash of the door being knocked down with a compact metal battering ram.  There  was a clatter of noise from inside, and shouting voices on both side, but Steve was right behind them anyway, Chin and Kono as his side. 

 

There were two men on their knees at SWAT gunpoint in the front room of the bar, hands behind their heads in between dirty tables.  As they passed through a Staff Only door at the back, they entered a dim room with boxes surrounding the walls and a decrepit table and chairs off to the side, with members of SWAT still shouting at three men to get down, guns raised.  Steve, however, only had eyes for the chair in the centre of the room.

 

Danny was trussed up in a chair, ropes tying him down through sheer volume and numbers rather than any actual skill at knot-tying.  He’d been worked over pretty good – one eye was swollen shut, blood matted his blond hair, and his shirt was ripped to pieces, revealing mottled bruises and broken skin all down his torso.  At his feet lay a man with a bullet hole through his forehead, the snipers still visible through the now open window near the roof.  He recognized the dead body and the rest of the perps in the building from the numerous mug shots and drivers licences that Danny had originally given them that the team had scoured in the past few days in the search for his whereabouts.  Danny’s chest moved in and out, just slightly – he was still alive.  At the sight, something in Steve’s gut twisted and he was at the man’s side with no memory of having moved over there. 

 

“I got ya, Danno.”  Steve pressed his hand to Danny’s shoulder along his collar bone, comforting and reassuring, his left hand reaching for his knife to cut the ropes loose.  Danny shifted, rolling his head towards Steve and blinking at him out of his good eye.  He said nothing while Steve sliced at the ropes binding him to the chair, holding him steady as his much of his weight suddenly transferred itself to his arms, and Steve may have not known Danny all that long – but the man being silent was something that struck him as decidedly wrong.  “You hear me?” 

 

He could hear Kono outside giving directions to the paramedics – they were assembling their gear and would be heading through the door any minute. 

 

“Thought you were dead,” is what Danny finally said, the words sounding pained and breathy in a way that suddenly reminded Steve of his own aching ribs, and head, for that matter.  Now that Danny was there in front of him, with help on the way, his adrenaline was receding.  He pushed that thought away, holding Danny close to him while the stretcher and the paramedics rattled into the bar’s outer room. 

 

“I got a hard head.” Steve assured him, a small smile breaking onto his face, cracking the military stoicism that had been on it for almost the entirety of time since he’d last seen Danny.

 

“That’s a better face.” Danny murmured, meeting Steve’s eyes as best he could, and something as far as the later was concerned clicked back into place.

 

Then the stretcher was there, and the paramedics were moving the guy out of Steve’s arms.  “You know, my ‘knight in cargo pants’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.” Danny said, ignoring some of the paramedics’ questions, and, behind him, Chin muttered something about a written apology to the Hawaii Medical Association being needed after all this.

 

“You know that makes you the damsel in distress, right  _brah_?”  Kono had a hold of one of his hands.  
  
  


“Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.” Danny said blithely, and Steve could hear Kono chuckling, and the paramedics murmuring numbers and assessments to each other, but the blue eyes were looking right at him.  He suddenly found it difficult to meet them, the world spinning gently around him, then there was white creeping in to the sides of his vision, and he thought distinctly that he should sit down.  He heard voices, urgent again, but he was finding it difficult to comprehend what they were saying saying, and, after a moment, found it didn’t matter quite so much, because they’d found Danny, and the white suddenly became darkness. 

 

~*~

 

“So what happens now?” Kono asked, handing Chin a cup of terrible hospital coffee and taking a sip of her own as she plunked herself down in one of the hideously uncomfortable hospital chairs. 

 

“McGarrett will get Danny’s badge back.”  Chin said, easily as anything.

 

“You think he can?”  Kono had thought as much, sure he would try, if not so sure he could succeed.

 

“He’s the kind of guy who knows how to get strings pulled, one way or another.  With all the boys we’re putting away, the Governor’s re-election is practically guaranteed – her ‘tough on crime’ approach paid off big time, and the boss is going to be in a position to get exactly what he wants, if he times it correctly.”  Chin said, easily. He took another sip of his coffee, seemingly impervious to its dirt-like texture. 

 

“Williams should have some sorta deal coming to him, too, being the lynch pin he is in all these cases.”  Kono agreed, giving up on her own coffee and wondering what the repercussions would be if she were to pour it into the garish planter next to her. 

 

“And you know where he’s going to be reinstated.”  Chin looked over at her, a hint of a wearied smile on his face.

 

“You kiddin’, cuz?”  Even a rookie like her wasn’t  _that_  green.  “If he gets his badge back, the bossman will make sure he stays right here in the fiftieth.”  Chin’s answering smile told her everything she needed to know.

 

~*~

 

“-ake up, Sleeping Beauty.”  

 

Steve blinked, finding the movement marred by his palm, and woodenly peeled his face off of his hand, his elbow slipping away from the armrest of his chair now that the weight was gone.  He blinked again, and saw Danny grinning at him from the bed, the expression oddly grotesque given how swollen, pink and bruised his entire face was.  The other man had a hand up to his own hair, smoothing it back as if that would put the tangled strands back into order.

 

“S’not going to work.” Steve assured him, his own voice rough with disuse.  He looked down, and gave a mental wince at the hospital gown he was clothed in and the IV still plugged in his arm, the stand nearby.  Right.  He remembered now waking up in a hospital room, his clothes mysteriously missing, and a sturdy-looking nurse blocking his way to the door and looking at him threateningly if he tried to remove the IV line.  In her defence, she’d escorted him to Danny’s room, where apparently he’d promptly fallen back to sleep.  Great, Sleeping Beauty indeed.

 

“Fine, you can be the prettiest one of them all, sorry to intrude.” Danny said, and sounded even worse than Steve, but that was to be expected given the whole kidnapped and tortured business. 

 

“Maybe just pick a Disney flick and stick with it,” was all Steve could think to say, in place of everything he actually wanted to.

 

“Ah-ha!  You do know some popular culture.”  Danny looked gleeful, despite his exhaustion. 

 

“I have a little sister,” Steve said, by way of explanation, not sure why he felt it was necessary, but Danny was smiling at him.

 

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”  Danny said with surprising kindness, and something like fondness.  Steve just looked at him.  “What kind of lunatic gets clocked out in a car accident, then doesn’t go to a hospital?”

 

“I got stitches.”  Steve said, pointing at his head, the IV line that he had forgotten about again dragging.  “By an ER nurse.”

 

“Phenomenal.” Danny sighed.  “And Kamikaze Girl, Cheekbones and Smartypants didn’t call a time out?”

 

“They made me get the stitches.” Steve was still irritatingly bleary, head and ribs aching as he suspected his painkillers, now that he was on them, to be rubbing off.  He wondered, belatedly, if Danny’s questions had been rhetorical.  He could tell from the gleam in Danny’s eyes and the myriad of tubes he was attached to that he was at least on the good stuff.  Which, considering, made Steve surprised that he was this coherent at all. 

 

“You don’t need a special task force, you need a babysitter.”  Steve reached up, unthinking, and took Danny’s hand.  Danny moved his head lazily on the pillow to look from his hand to Steve’s face.

 

“I honestly don’t know whether to say that’s kinky or to demand reasonable wages.” Danny smiled, but Steve froze.  Danny’s smile faltered, and he tugged Steve closer by his hand, until Steve was leaning in over the side of the bed, ignoring his ribs’ complaints.

 

“I didn’t mean it like that – babysitter joke, remember?” Danny was speaking softly now, and Steve couldn’t stop himself from staring at his lips, even though the bottom one was split and Steve harboured violent thoughts towards the men they apprehended in the bar.  “I’m getting out of the business.  Closing up shop.  Burning the business cards.”

 

“What do you think about being a detective again?” Is what Steve said bluntly in return, with no memory of how he’d reached that decision.  It seemed impulsive, but he had the sneaking suspicion that in the back of his mind this is what he’d been planning on suggesting since he’d found out that Danny used to be a cop in the first place.  

 

Something lit up in the back of Danny’s eyes, glazed or not, and he smiled, slow and wide.  Steve put his feet under him, IV stand dragging noisily closer, and leaned in and kissed Danny, both feeling and hearing the other man chuckling against his lips. 

 

Now all Steve had to figure out was how he was going to get the man regular visitation rights with his daughter.  But he supposed that they had time to work that out, when there were less drugs in their present and fewer court trials and witness stands in their future.  He knew that the Governor wouldn’t disband the task force now that vice wasn’t the main concern, but instead turn their focus to more general criminal issues – and for that, they would need another team member, and Steve knew just who he had in mind. 

 

 

~*~

 

Translations: 

_Kaikaina_  – younger sister                                      

_Kua’ana –_ older sister

_Wahine hookamakama_  – whore, prostitute

 


End file.
